Muhja bint al-Tayyani

Muhja bint al-Tayyani al-Qurtubiyya (born in Córdoba, died in Córdoba 1097 CE) was an eleventh-century Andalusian poet.

She was the daughter of a Cordoban merchant who was engaged in the sale of figs. At some point, she met the famous poet Princess Wallada, who took her into her house — which served as a school of poetry for women — and mentored her. Wallada was extremely fond of Muhja, writing her passionate (and rather explicit) love poetry, and there are suggestions they may have been lovers.

Poems Sixteenth-century CE Turkish picture of Mary shaking the palm tree for dates. Muhja dedicated ferocious satires to her teacher: +Original Transliteration (ALA-LC)Literal translationوَلّادة قَدْ صِرْتِ وَلّادة\\مِن غَيْرِ بَعَلٍ فَضَحَ الكاتِمُ حَكَت لَنا مَرْيَم لَكِنّه\\نَخْلة هَذي ذَكَرٌ قائِمُWallādah qad ṣirti wallādah min ghayri baʿalin faḍaḥa al-kātimu

ḥakat lanā Maryam lākinnah

nakhlat hādhī dhakaru qāʾimu. Wallada has become fecund by another man; the secret-keeper revealed it.

To us, she resembled Mary, but

this palm-tree is an erect penis. This poem puns on Wallada's name, which literally means 'fecund'. It compares Wallada, ostensibly pregnant out of wedlock, to the Virgin Mary. The poem shifts from a literary register in the first half to a colloquial one in the second (characterised by the colloquial form hāḏī in place of classical hāḏihi). The second half alludes specifically to the Islamic account of the virgin birth, in which Mariam received a divine instruction to shake the trunk of a date palm while giving birth to Jesus, so that its fruits fall down to her. In Muhya's account, Wallada has grasped a penis to similar effect.

Another example is this verse: